GROUPING OF URBAN UNIVERSITIES URGED BY STATE COLLEGE TASK FORCE

Robert Vitale, Chicago TribuneCHICAGO TRIBUNE

A gubernatorial task force looking at ways to streamline the state`s higher education bureaucracy has presented options that include a Board of Chicago Universities to oversee Chicago State, Governors State and

Northeastern Illinois.

A Chicago university board would be able to focus on ''urban educational opportunities,'' according to the task force report delivered to Gov. Jim Edgar.

Officials at Governors State and Northeastern Illinois had not seen the report late last week when it was made public and did not want to comment. Chicago State officials were unavailable.

Edgar appointed the task force in April to look at ways of trimming the higher education bureaucracy.

But Edgar spokesman Michael Lawrence said any proposed action on the proposal in the legislature will have to wait.

''He believes the issue deserves full review and debate in the General Assembly and would not receive either in the next two weeks, when the focus will be primarily on the budget for the next fiscal year,'' Lawrence said.

The Chicago board is included in the more radical of two options presented to Edgar. It would do away with the current Board of Governors and Board of Regents, which oversee eight state universities, including the Chicago schools.

Northern Illinois, Illinois State, Eastern Illinois and Western Illinois universities would have separate boards of trustees. Sangamon State University in Springfield would become a campus of the University of Illinois.

A proposal to eliminate the Illinois ''system of systems'' was expected of the panel, whose co-chairman, Lt. Gov. Robert Kustra, has advocated the elimination of the Board of Governors and Board of Regents.

The boards have been criticized as a needless level of bureaucracy that stifles schools` autonomy.

While Kustra had acknowledged that abolishing the boards would not necessarily save money, advocates said independence is what`s important.

''It`s going to offer individual universities a little more sense of self-sufficiency,'' said Rep. Michael Weaver (R-Mattoon), who has introduced legislation to eliminate the Board of Regents and Board of Governors. ''Right now they don`t feel like they have friends in higher education.''

Weaver said he favors separate boards for each school over the task force`s other option, which would keep the five Board of Governors

universities under one system of ''regional'' schools.

A separate board would oversee Northern Illinois, Illinois State and Southern Illinois, which all grant doctorate degrees.

That option, like the first, would add Sangamon State to the U. of I. system.

In its report, the task force also called for less central bureaucracy in higher education, while urging a stronger Board of Higher Education, which coordinates the entire system.

That seemed odd to Board of Regents Chancellor Roderick Groves, whose job could be made extinct by either plan.

''Not surprisingly, I think it does very little to help define the situation,'' he said. ''The whole plan smacks of centralization. From everything I`ve observed, centralization means more bureaucracy.''